Panel Discussion of Abandonware (in an IoT Context)

During the past couple years, the good folks over at Gestalt IT have been working to find more ways to make sure that the Tech Field Day delegates feel that their time has been valued and put to good use. One of the ways they’ve been doing that is to use some of the down time to record podcasts.

At one of the Storage Field Days I attended, I was fortunate enough to get the opportunity to sit on a podcast panel to discuss “abandonware” — especially in the context of the Internet of Things (IoT).

What’s abandonware? It’s what happens when you have a networked device that still works, but is no longer supported by its manufacturer — or worse, whose manufacturer has gone out of business. Lack of support for the device means no more software updates, which means no security patches. Unpatched devices on your network leave your network vulnerable.

We talked about this as well as possible solutions for this problem for the podcast.

[SPOILER ALERT: There isn’t really a good, simple solution — at least that we were able to find…]

You can read about (and watch) the podcast episode on the Gestalt IT site. You can also watch the episode below.

If you’ve got an idea on how to solve the abandonware problem, please let me know in the comments.